


Les Innocents Aux Mains Sales

by Donna_Immaculata



Series: Nightshapes [5]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angry Sex, Angst, Deconstruction, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Polyamorous Character, Porn with Feelings, Tender Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2592734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Anne’s feline smile and grace. His pulse had heaved the moment he set eyes on her across the room for the first time, and it never stopped heaving at the mere sight of her, the sound of her voice, the whiff of her perfume. He was driven to her with every desperate throb of his blood.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW: dub-con. But then, it's Athos/Milady, fluff is not to be expected. Also: buckets of angst. Sorry about that.

[b/w]

Here’s the thing. Athos had suspected, for many years, that something was wrong with his libido. Even as a teenager, he didn’t feel the need to masturbate often. Privacy was a rare commodity in the boarding schools where he spent the best part of his teens, and the idea of wanking off in the dormitory under the cover of darkness never appealed to him, not even during the few horrible years when hormones were all over the place.

He was taking his time now, his legs spread wide and his cock hard and damp already, and the pressure of his hand around it comforting and arousing at the same time. 

Back at school, he had never been interested in the groping and wanking and blowjobs that were going on everywhere. The idea of having a fumbling teenage boy’s hands on him never appealed to him. If he did wank off, he made sure that no-one would walk in on him.

He’d lived on his own ever since he left school. But now, Athos thought, running his hand slowly down the length of his cock, taking his time to savour the sensation, now it’s just possible that he might’ve finally met someone with whom he would like to share a house. A life.

He fell in love with Berlin. It was a huge construction site when he first arrived in the late nineties. Straight out of school, scared and curious, and determined to enrol at Humboldt University, his parents and Oxbridge be damned. He moved into a dingy room above an abandoned glass blowing workshop in Prenzlauer Berg, and a week later a techno club moved into the basement of his house. It remained there for two weeks and then moved on, and everything clicked into place: that was the moment when Athos knew that he’d get the hang of the city. His life up until then had taken place in the stagnant pond of the respectable family home and the just as respectable public school. Berlin in the 1990s was a squall-lashed ocean. People kept pouring into the city from all over Germany and from abroad, life was cheap and exhilarating. And when he sat in the window, huddled under a blanket, because the eastern winds brought on their wings the prickling cold of Siberian tundra, looking out over streets that changed their appearance overnight, he was perched in the centre of a spinning top, around which the world was revolving at dizzying, breathless speeds.

Galleries, cabarets and clubs moved into abandoned houses and moved away again. He saw a five-man production of Woyzeck that impressed him so much he couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, and when he went back to see it again, the theatre no longer existed. A fellow student got him his first paid job, and he learned that yes, no matter what Father had always said, Athos had been right all along: he did have an eye for this.

And then – Athos moaned and gripped his cock more firmly, sliding his fist all the way down to the base and holding it there, hard and motionless, until it hurt – and then, one night in Tacheles, he wandered into a sculptor’s workshop, and there was Anne.

Athos groaned at the memory. Anne’s feline smile and grace. His pulse had heaved the moment he set eyes on her across the room for the first time, and it never stopped heaving at the mere sight of her, the sound of her voice, the whiff of her perfume. He was driven to her with every desperate throb of his blood. 

Blood that was now throbbing in his cock, in the vein in his neck, and his lips. Athos twisted his wrist to slide the underside of his cock against his palm. He shifted the laptop and tilted the monitor into a better position, watching a couple fuck on screen; the image of their bodies mingled with his fantasies of Anne, Anne, Anne… Her body lithe and agile above him, her nails sharp in the side of his neck, her mouth curved like a cat’s. He closed his eyes to conjure up the memory of her breasts, the way they swayed when she was riding him hard and slow and deep, just like she liked it, and when he opened his eyes, there it was, her face, her mouth open in ecstasy and her legs open for a huge dick and oh no, no, no, his blood turned to ice and his cock wilted in his hand, and on screen Anne was being fucked by a massive, iron-hard body that manhandled her like a puppet.

~*~

Slumped against the wall in the shower, he permitted the hot water to pelt him until he was scrubbed raw. He dried and dressed mechanically, picked Anne’s toothbrush, her face cream, her bathrobe, her hairbrush, her body lotion, her hairpins, her tampons, her shampoo, her perfume from the shelves and cabinets.

He hunted down Anne’s things scattered around his flat and carried them to the kitchen, put them on the table and fetched a box. His skin hurt. Images flashed before his eyes. Anne’s face twisted in ecstasy. Anne impaled on a huge dick. Anne fucked for money by a mountain of muscles and flesh.

She would be here soon. They were supposed to have dinner and he had planned to ask her to move in with him. He stacked her things in the box, folded her silk scarf neatly and put it on top of the rest. Picked it up again and buried his face in it.

He picked up a pen and wrote, without sitting down at the table: “This is yours, Anne. If I’ll find any more of your possessions here, I’ll send them on. I enclose 20 euros for a taxi, it’ll be more convenient than carrying the box on the underground. Leave the key on the table.

Athos”

And underneath, in capital letters, the title of the film.

~*~

He was drunk when he came back. He never got drunk, not like this, not beyond caring. His sluggish brain did not register at first that something was wrong; instead, his pulse heaved at the sight of Anne sitting at the table by the light of one lamp and his traitorous legs carried him towards her before he could stop himself.

“Don’t touch me!” Her lips twisted in a snarl, and he recoiled.

“I’m not going to,” he said in a low and steady voice. “Never again.”

Anne rose to her feet. “You fucking asshole,” her voice rose in a serpentine hiss. “Is that all you have to say to me? She threw the crumpled paper ball at his face. “This pathetic piece of paper, is this how you want to end what we have?”

“There is nothing to say.” Athos’ fury was all-encompassing and absolute. It steadied his voice and his body, it drained the alcohol from his blood and his limbs. He stood beside himself and watched himself strangle her with his bare hands.

“You fucking hypocrite,” Anne hissed, and he blinked. He hadn’t moved, and neither had she; they were facing each other across the kitchen. He would never touch her again. The thought burned itself across his mind and flames of agony erupted on his skin. “How did you find out?”

“I saw-” Athos said and stopped.

“You saw. You saw me in a porn film, because you watched porn, you self-righteous bastard.” Anne's furious face was that of a stranger. 

“I don’t want to watch my girlfriend get _fucked_ by other men.” Athos stepped closer to look her in the eye, the familiar glitter of green. “I hardly think you can blame me for that.”

“Just other people’s girlfriends, then?” Anne said with biting sarcasm. “Or perhaps women who were forced to do it? Drug addicts or victims of human trafficking?”

She was twisting the facts, and his hand twitched to grab her like a coiling snake. “Is this how you see it all of a sudden? It was you who always claimed that not all porn is bad, Anne. That everyone has the right to do it and to watch it. Don’t you dare call _me_ a hypocrite.”

Anne narrowed her eyes and struck like a serpent. “Don’t pretend you don’t understand. I am the woman you want to see in your porn. I’m the one you can use to justify your porn habits by saying, oh no, they’re not all dead-eyed junkies or trafficked sex slaves. Some are just normal women who want to pay for their college tuition. That’s the line, isn’t it? Well, that’s me, you fucking bastard. I am that elusive mythical creature who did have the choice: I did it to earn some extra money, not because someone was forcing me to do it. I had a great deal of control over it.” She was slashing into his soul in earnest now, and it was impossible, impossible to say anything, because he loved her so much and the thought of touching her ever again disgusted him. Her words were like barbed hooks that embedded themselves in his brain. She had no mercy, Anne, when she spat at him graphic details about girls she had known who were forced to spread themselves for men to be fucked raw. “Those men shove their dicks into them, and it’s gang rape in front of the camera, is that what you want to see? For every ten-minute clip on youporn, that’s hours of pain and degradation just so you can get yourself off without having to see them as real people. Well, tough. I’m real, and I am what a woman looks like who has not been forced into doing it. I enjoyed it. Would you rather I didn’t? Would you rather wank to the images of girls getting raped? You think I’m a whore for doing it, but you wank off to watching other whores getting fucked?”

Sex with Anne had been a revelation. He had never known his body could enjoy itself like that. And so when she strode at him to snarl her fury in his face, his blood heaved like it always did. Anne touched him, her hand on his arm, her fingers cold and hard like steel, and he was lost. “Let go,” he managed through clenched teeth. But Anne didn’t let go, she dug her nails into his arm. He must have thrown her down then, or she him, because he was lying on his back on the kitchen floor. He was hard, of course he was, how could he not when Anne was straddling him, when she rubbed herself against him? Her skirt has ridden up and her thighs were burning him through the fabric of his jeans and he could feel how wet she was. She bit him, bit his mouth, and he jerked her head back by the hair and his hips twitched into the weight of her.

Anne’s nails were buried in his flesh, hard, much too hard, and she panted into his face. “I love you, Athos.” He gasped, a death rattle to his own ears, and rolled them both over. She arched beneath him. Her body was so slim and small, he could break her easily. The world was spinning around him as alcohol coursed through his veins again, breaking down the dam of self-control. Anne cried out when he pushed into her and wrapped her legs tightly around his waist. “Yeah, like that,” she moaned. “Harder!”

“No.” The image flashed up again: Anne moaning and writhing under the assault of a stranger’s dick. His skin tautens with disgust. “Anne. _Stop_.”

She laughed in breathless triumph. Her legs were wrapped so tight around him he could barely breathe. He thrust into her hard enough to hurt, until her entire body shuddered. Her nails dug deeper into his flesh, deep enough to draw blood. “ _Fuck_.” He pulled out and thrust back in again; she was so wet his cock slid in easily up to the hilt.

“You love me too,” she gasped. “You can’t live without me.” She arched off the ground, clinging to him with her legs, pulling him in impossibly deep. “Yeah, like that, darling, deeper. I love your cock inside me.”

“Shut up!” His stomach turned at the porn talk. Nausea was building up, he didn’t want this, but he was helpless against his own body and against Anne. He couldn’t stop himself, but he could stop her; stop her moaning filth at him as if he was a stranger renting out his cock to fuck her. He wrapped a hand around her throat and tightened his grip until he felt her choke, until her eyes widened and her body spasmed. Her thighs around him were like vice, and it hurt, everything hurt, and then she convulsed beneath him and her cunt clamped down on him. Athos drove into her and his cock emptied itself in the tight heat in a gush so powerful it made his head spin.

“We should do this more often,” Anne said hoarsely after Athos had rolled off her and was lying on his back, panting. “A good hard fuck on the floor.” She reached over and brushed his hand with her fingers.

He jerked his hand back. “Go,” he said without looking at her. 

“What?” That was the first time he heard uncertainty in her voice. “Athos, what do you mean?”

“I want you to go. Leave the key.”

“You don’t mean that.” She tried to take his hand again but he recoiled from her touch and shifted away.

He heard the rustle of clothes as she got up, and then she was standing above him, tugging on her knickers. His stomach clenched when he caught sight of her face. There were no tears in her eyes, Anne never cried.

“I’ll make you pay for this,” she said in a low voice. “Do you know what you just did? You hurt me.” She raised her hand to the red marks on her throat. “You used me. And you got off on it, you twisted bastard. This is what you are when you lose control.”

Anne’s heels clacked and the door slammed. Athos turned his head and stared at the puddle of her come and his on the floor. The swirl of shame and guilt unfurled in his stomach; a lethal vortex that sucked him in and dragged him down.

~*~

He locked himself in his flat and drank for five days straight. He ignored all calls and emails, until one miserable rainy afternoon brought a text message from Porthos.

“Massacre at lake geneva. aramis hurt. are you coming?”

Athos peeled himself out of the nest of pillows and blankets on the sofa, opened his laptop with trembling hands and booked two flights to Switzerland.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Anne’s grip in his shirt loosened, and she brushed her thumb lightly over the fabric, barely a caress. Her eyes shone at him and her mouth was so close, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, and then she sighed and dropped her gaze from his eyes to his mouth, and that was it._

When Aramis was sixteen, he was in love. Deeply and irrevocably in love, with his mind and soul and certainly with his body. In hindsight, he had not handled it very maturely – but then, how could he? She had been confused and sore, and so was he, and they both were more than a little bit resentful. The thing that always rankled was that they had never split up. Just like that, she was gone: first sent on a school exchange to Australia, and when she came back one year later, her parents put her in a different school, and hers and Aramis’ paths never crossed.

When he found her on Facebook, he had stared at her profile for ten minutes. Then, he got up, made himself a coffee, sat back at his laptop and wrote her a note with which he knew he’d charm himself back into her heart.

He should’ve looked her up sooner, Aramis thought, checking Facebook on his mobile; he felt himself grin like a loon. Funny it had never occurred to him in twenty years to search for Isabelle. Just because fate and authoritarian parents had torn them apart, it didn’t mean that it had to be over. Look at Porthos and Flea: their love had lasted ever since they were teenagers. It didn’t matter that Porthos had spent years travelling the world. He returned to her in the end, and she took him back. Some lovers were meant to be.

The fact that Isabelle now lived in Paris did not disconcert him. Quite the contrary: he considered it a good omen. A school trip to Paris was where they’d first kissed, and what could be more romantic than being reunited with your first love in the city where your love blossomed? Especially if that city was Paris.

He switched off his mobile, pocketed it, picked up the camera, got out of the car and walked over to the black Golf estate, pulling on his gloves on the way. Athos, crouching in the Golf’s boot, looked up from the monitor when he heard Aramis approach and treated him to that pitying sidelong glance of his. “It’s May,” Athos said with a pointed look at Aramis’ gloved hands.

“Not all of us grew up in northern climes.” Aramis ducked under the boot lid and folded up in the boot. Athos shifted the monitor towards him “It’s freezing, and it was you who insisted on handheld shots. I need my hands to be steady.”

“It’s quicker that way. It might start to rain again at any moment, and if the Red is mounted on the dolly, we might not have time to get it to safety.”

“And God forbid anything should happen to the Red,” Aramis said. “Right. Where’s that assistant of yours?” He peered out from under the boot lid. The crew were piling out from the cars where they had hidden from the sudden downpour of rain. Everyone was wet, because they had been scurrying through the rain, haphazardly shoving boxes and pieces of equipment in the cars. Everyone apart from Anne, whom they needed to be in front of the camera and whom Aramis had unceremoniously bundled into the production assistant’s car the moment he felt the first raindrops on his face. They couldn’t afford the actress’ hair and costume to get wet. 

The air was crisp and blue, afternoon light was morphing into evening light. Athos looked as calm and unconcerned as ever. He watched the day’s rushes on the monitor and seemed entirely unaware that they were losing light at an alarming speed. Aramis didn’t hurry him. Athos knew what he was doing. 

The air shimmered and blue turned to grey with a thin drizzle, more mist than rain. Aramis pulled off his glove and stuck out his hand. A few feeble drops found their way to his palm, barely moistening it. “Do we wait or shoot?”

“Let’s do it.” Athos moved with sudden precision. He swung his legs out of the boot and stood. “All right, everyone!” he said. “We’re picking up where we left off before it started to rain. We don’t have long, so no screw-ups. Anne, are you ready?”

Caroline, who was putting finishing brushes to Anne’s make-up, waved an impatient hand at him. “Give me a minute.”

“You could’ve done that in the car,” Athos said. “You had forty minutes.”

“I could have,” Caroline said calmly, “had not an idiot hid the make-up bag in a different car.”

Aramis climbed out of the boot. “Where is the box with the filters?” he asked.

~*~

“I’m sorry, Anne,” Aramis said in an undertone, walking beside her along the path that they’d been walking up and down for the last hour. The rain had mercifully stopped, but it had brought the temperature down, and Anne was shivering in her summer dress. Aramis had insisted she’d put on his jacket between takes. “We should wrap up for today and do the rest tomorrow.”

“Have you heard the weather forecast for tomorrow?” she said through chattering teeth. “It’s supposed to be raining all day. No, Athos is right. We have to finish today.”

“Sorry,” Aramis said again.

“It’s not your fault. It was Louis’ idea to send us out here.” Into the vast wastelands of Mecklenburg Lakeland, into kettle bogs and moraines. Watching herons stalk majestically through swamps was entertaining on the first day or two. He never knew there were so many different types of duck. As far as he was concerned, duck was crispy and best served with sweet-sour sauce. 

“He shouldn’t have asked you to do it. You work hard enough as it is.” Louis had had the bright idea that what the new image film needed was ‘plenty of nature shots’. And there they were, in the very heart of fucking nature. Already, they had to skip dinner one night, because the only _kneipe_ in what grandiloquently called itself a ‘village’ didn’t accept cards and the next ATM was in a village thirty kilometres away and not accessible after 8pm.

“He thinks that I should be the face of the film,” Anne said calmly and entirely without coyness.

Aramis smiled. Anne was so poised and self-assured. In some ways she reminded him of Athos: they were both wrapped in calm confidence, in an air of effortless authority. 

“Right.” He stopped at the mark from which they would walk down the path one more time. One last time, because light would be gone completely once they arrived on the other side. Anne pulled off his jacket, handed it back to him and he shrugged it on. It smelled faintly of her where her hair had spilled over the collar. Florian lifted the reflector at head height and Aramis pointed the Red at Anne. He looked at her over the camera and smiled. “Let’s do it,” he said softly.

~*~

They were back at the B&B before nightfall and were even served dinner by the surly and very Eastern-German landlady, who made a point of not understanding a word in Athos’ English accent, Aramis’ Spanish accent or Anne’s Austrian accent. “It’s like a different world,” Aramis shook his head at the landlady’s retreating back. “One hundred kilometres from Berlin, and we’ve landed in what clearly is the beginning of a slasher movie set in a cannibal village.”

“If that’s any consolation: I don’t think they’ll eat us,” Athos said, his voice low and dry as bone. “We’re no better than vermin, that would be disgusting. What do you think all those bogs behind the house are for? They’re the carefully cultivated last resting place of tourists.”

“They’ll probably consider us a sacrifice to the swamp gods,” Aramis said. “How’s your hot lemon, Anne?”

“Entirely lemon-free,” Anne said, holding out the glass to him. “She understood ‘hot water’ and conveniently missed the ‘lemon’ bit of my order.”

Athos grinned, and Aramis started to laugh.

At the next table, the rest of the crew had ordered a bottle of vodka and were celebrating the end of location shooting. They were getting on much better with the landlady than Anne, Athos and Aramis; but then, Florian was a Berlin lad born and bred, and his dialect gained him many favours with the natives. He caught Aramis looking and toasted him. “Come on, guys, have one on me!” he called over. “There’s plenty for everyone.”

Aramis glanced at Athos, who shook his head and indicated the monitor where they were viewing the rushes.

“Not on duty, eh?” Florian said. “You lot are so disciplined.”

“Actually,” Anne said. “Why not? We can have a vodka shot to celebrate.”

“Not when I’m working,” Athos said.

Aramis leaned across to the other table. “Go on, then. Anne and I will have one.”

Anne downed her drink in one go and beamed at him. “That’s better. It feels like a return to civilisation.” She had taken a shower before dinner and her hair, still a bit damp, tumbled in waves around her face. 

“You were drinking beer every night for the last week,” Athos said.

“Don’t tell Louis,” Anne said. “He already thinks I drink too much.”

“We won’t,” Aramis said. His mobile beeped and his heart leapt. “I’m sorry,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ve got to answer this.” He walked out and sat on the steps that led to the bedrooms upstairs. Isabelle. Ever since he had charmed his way back into her life, they’ve been exchanging notes several times a day. He smiled and read her message, stroking the edge of the mobile with his thumb. His smile froze. He stared at the display, and memories, images, fantasies of Paris swirled around in his head.

The door to the dining room creaked open and Anne appeared before him, backlit and oddly hesitant. “Aramis? Athos needs you,” she said.

“Yes.” He stood up, still staring at the phone. “Yes. Sorry.” She stepped aside to let him through and he stopped. “You’re not coming back in?”

“I’m going to bed.” She lifted her shoulders, in a shrug or because she was cold, he couldn’t say. “I’m exhausted. I told you what I think, the rest is up to you. I’m sure you and Athos get it right.” She smiled up at him and floated past. He watched her until she disappeared on top of the stairs and went back in to join Athos. A bottle of vodka was sitting on their table, between the monitor and the script. 

Aramis raised his eyebrows. “What happened to ‘not when I’m working’?”

“We’re almost done here,” Athos said. “Sit down, have a look at this, and then we’ll drink.”

~*~

Athos had the enviable ability to sleep when he was drunk. Porthos was an annoyingly sound sleeper, but that was because he knew how to look after his own basic needs. Athos could get drunk, sleep the night through without waking up every half an hour and tossing around, and he had the discipline to be alert and awake the next morning.

Aramis had neither the discipline nor – apparently – the ability to look after himself. He disentangled himself carefully from the thin and rather mouldy-smelling duvet, picked up his mobile from the bedside table and his cigarette case from his jacket pocket and sneaked out of the room without waking Athos. If all went well, he would find a window that he could open to have a surreptitious smoke; and if he was really lucky, he would not end up being eaten by cannibals or drowned in the bog.

He wrestled with the window at the end of the corridors. It put on a brave fight, but he succeeded in the end. A cold gust of wind and a flurry of raindrops hit his face and he shivered. He pulled himself up on the windowsill, leaned against the frame and lit a cigarette, staring out into the black night. 

A door creaked to his right and he startled. Anne peered out, spotted him and came out, closing the door quietly behind herself.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Anne was wearing loose pyjamas, and he tried very hard not to stare at where her nipples were clearly visible under her top. 

She stepped closer and took the cigarette from him. “Mmh…” she said, leaning over him so that she could look up into the sky. Her hair coiled on his chest and stomach. Aramis gripped the edge of the windowsill and clenched his teeth. “Tonight was rather anticlimactic,” Anne said, handing him the cigarette back. “I thought you guys always have a party on the last day.”

“I don’t think we were in the mood,” Aramis said and blew out a cloud of smoke into the cold night air. “It’s not the most inviting of venues.” He looked around.

“Difficult to get in the mood when you’re surrounded by potential cannibals, is it?” Anne smiled, and he smiled back. “Or does your mysterious correspondent have anything to do with your low spirits?” she asked suddenly. 

“What?” Aramis glanced down at her. “No. There’s no mysterious correspondent.”

“I’m not stupid,” she said, and leaned against the windowsill so that she ended up pressed up against his bent thigh. No, she wasn’t stupid, he never thought she was stupid, but this was. And oh fuck, what was he doing here?

“Isabelle,” he said. “She was my first love. My greatest love. She fell pregnant and had an abortion, and her family did everything to keep her away from me. I never saw her again, but I always knew that she was the woman with whom I should have spent all my life. Nobody’s ever measured up to her.” He frowned and thought of Adele, who chose another man over him. “All those years, I knew that if I ever got back with Isabelle, everything would fall into place, you know? She was the missing piece in my life.”

“But?”

“But…” he shook his head. “It turns out it was a lie. She didn’t want to see me again. I always thought it was her father who took her away, but it was her decision. And she doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to meet up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She’s probably right. She doesn’t need me. She’s got a life and a career and she’s happy. I would only destroy that. I always do. She’s right to keep away from me.”

“No.” Anne put a hand on his shoulder and clutched a fistful of his shirt. Aramis glanced down and then into her face, and oh fuck, he was lost, and this was bad, but Anne was talking, telling him not to be stupid, that if there was a man who could make a woman happy it was him, and then she stopped talking and stared at him and Aramis clenched his hand more tightly around the edge of the windowsill.

Anne’s grip in his shirt loosened, and she brushed her thumb lightly over the fabric, barely a caress. Her eyes shone at him and her mouth was so close, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, and then she sighed and dropped her gaze from his eyes to his mouth, and that was it. He was kissing Anne, that sublime, ethereal creature, and it was such a comfort that she tasted of cigarettes, because it made her seem real and human. Aramis cupped her face and sighed when her tongue slipped over his lip and into his mouth. His senses were already full of Anne: Anne’s skin under his hand, the silk of her hair slipping through his fingers, the flutter of her lashes against his cheeks, and she was melting into him, he could tell, moulding herself to him, and he hadn’t even pulled her close yet. 

“What is it?” Anne whispered, later, when they were lying on her bed. She took his hand that he hovered just above her breast, a ghost of a touch that made his palm tingle, and pressed it to her flesh.

“You’re beautiful,” Aramis whispered back. He brushed the pad of his thumb over her sternum and dragged it up the swell of her breast. Anne smiled and pulled him down to kiss him, opening her mouth for him even before their lips touched. Aramis pulled himself above her, one knee between her thighs and one arm curled above her head, his fingers tangled in her hair. He wanted to bury her beneath himself, keep her warm and safe with the heat and bulk of his body. She was so delicate, Anne, so fragile, and she was kissing him deeply, giving herself to him, _trusting_ him. “Anne,” he muttered against her lips, lightheaded, and rested his forehead against hers, giving them both time and space to catch their breath.

Anne’s hand curled around the nape of his neck, Anne’s throat, a long, graceful curve under his mouth, and he could feel it vibrate against his lips as she moaned, arching into him. Anne’s hand moving up his neck and into his hair as he dragged himself down her body. He licked a path beneath her breasts and tasted the salt of her sweat that had gathered there. Heat was rising like steam off her skin and off his and mingled between their bodies. Aramis slid his hand between her legs and cupped her.

Anne pushed into his hand, hard and shameless, and her legs fell open. Aramis looked up from where he was kissing goosebumps into the skin of her stomach. Her eyes were huge and wild, and that was it: the exhilarating moment when he _knew_ that he was doing it right; that his touch made her shed the last layer she wore. Anne clutched his hair and Aramis turned his head and kissed the inside of her wrist, the tender skin there. 

He lowered his head again and tugged at the waistband of her pyjama bottoms with his teeth.

There was a dark patch on the bed sheet when he came up again, kissing her thighs, dragging his tongue over the graceful curve of her hips, pressing his mouth into the soft flesh of her breasts. His hand was wet all the way down to the wrist, and his entire face was soaked in her scent. Anne sobbed into his mouth when he kissed her, brushing away damp hair that clung to her cheek and temple. “It’s all right,” he mouthed against her skin. “I’ve got you. Anne.”

A shuddering breath, it could be a sob or a snort, and she was laughing, clutching him with arms and legs. “You really have.” He felt her hands move down his back, long nails grazing his skin, and then she was pulling off his boxers and her hand snaked between their bodies and curled around his cock.

“Please,” Aramis said in a voice that wasn’t his own. “Anne.”

She let go of his cock and draped her legs around his waist, rubbing herself wetly against him. “Aramis,” she breathed, pulling him in until her hipbones dug into his stomach. His hips jerked into her, the heat and friction between her skin and his, and he began to rock against her, kissing her mouth, her temples, the hollow of her throat. Anne angled her hips to rub herself on him, a long up-and-down swipe of her body against his, and when she slid down, his cock slipped between her thighs. Aramis groaned, the slick heat of her was almost too much, and then her hand was moving between their bodies again and he was sinking into her in a long, smooth stroke, and there was one breathless moment when they both stilled, throbbing with each other’s heartbeat. “Oh _fuck_ ,” Anne gasped.

“Anne,” Aramis said into her hair. “God, Anne.” His body started to move on top of her, inside her, around her. She hitched up her thigh to take him in deeper, and he wrapped one hand around her foot and felt her toes curl. He pulled in his knee and changed the angle, just a bit, but it was enough: Anne’s thighs around his waist spasmed, and he knew that he got it right, that this felt good for her, and thrust in again. His shoulder was moist with her gasps and her body was tightly coiled. He _had_ to keep this up, one more push, and another one, and Anne groaned, tensing beneath and around him, and he let go. A sudden headrush and the sound of his own breathing in his ears, and his hips pressed deep into the cradle between her thighs. Anne’s arms were heavy around his shoulders, pulling him in. It took all the control he had left not to collapse on her. “I’m too heavy,” he muttered, bracing himself on trembling arms.

Anne shook her head. “Not yet. Stay here.” She pulled him close and he permitted himself to rest atop her, nuzzling her neck. Anne was trembling, too, and he groped for the duvet and pulled it over both of them without letting go of her. Anne kissed him again, full of tenderness and longing, and he raised himself off her and rolled on his back with her in his arms. Anne kissed him on the chest. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Aramis laughed shakily. “Anytime,” he said and felt a puff of air on his skin that could’ve been a sigh or could’ve been a laugh. He stroked her hair and twined one long strand around his fingers. “Anytime, Anne.”

~*~

He should’ve known that he’d oversleep. Aramis blinked up against the ceiling; his head, his mouth, his nose were still full of Anne. Her scent, the feel of her skin, the way her body had moulded itself to him when she slept on his chest – all this had imprinted itself on his senses. His arm was numb and one of his legs was icy cold, because the duvet had slipped off him and was tangled around Anne. He would gladly stay there forever.

Anne stirred. “Hey,” she murmured against his chest.

“Good morning,” Aramis said, tightening his arm around her shoulder. His body was waking up and the thought of going down on her before she was even fully awake was already making him hard.

On the bedside table, Anne’s mobile beeped. She rolled off him and read the message. “It’s Louis,” she said without looking at him. “He wants to know what time we’ll be back.”

“Yeah.” Aramis sat up. “I’ll better go.”

She looked at him over her shoulder, beautiful in the early morning light, with her swollen mouth and her wild hair. “Yeah,” she said. She leaned in and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “Good morning.”

He should’ve known it, really. Aramis looked at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. He looked like a man who’d spent the last night having vigorous sex, and he certainly smelled like one. After a moment’s hesitation he washed his face as thoroughly as possible without any soap at hand. His toilet bag and his towel were in his room, he hadn’t left them in the communal bathroom. He would be smelling of Anne for days anyway, soap or no soap. 

As he was sneaking down the corridor, Athos staggered out of their room, still half asleep. Aramis stopped dead and Athos looked up at him without really seeing him. “Bathroom’s free,” Aramis said. Athos grunted something in reply and shuffled past him. Once he stepped over the threshold to their bedroom, Aramis closed the door and collapsed against in with a sigh of relief. That had been a close call.

~*~

After all those years that he's known Anne, he is always struck anew by her otherworldly beauty and elegance. Tonight is no exception: Anne is simply radiant in her pale golden dress. It lends her a regal appearance and he smiles at the memory of how they started to call her Queenie, all those years ago, to distinguish her from Athos’ Anne.

Athos is here as well. He’s talking to d’Artagnan and Porthos, and Aramis gets four glasses of wine at the bar and, balancing them carefully, walks over to them. D’Artagnan and Porthos thank him with a smile, whilst Athos looks at him as if he was attempting to scan him to the very bottom of his soul. Aramis hands him the glass. He’s not sure how Athos feels about him right now. Athos never said he wanted to stop, and Aramis is certain that Athos would tell him; he wouldn’t play games. But he’s been remote and even more reserved than usual lately. Aramis has left him alone, even though his nerves tingle with impatience. He is angry with himself, with his inability to tell Athos what he wants – for the simple reason that he doesn’t know what that is. He wants to touch Athos and he certainly wants to make him feel like that again, like he did that night, but that doesn’t seem enough. Having Athos come apart under his hands and mouth was one of the most mindblowing experiences of his life, and he desperately wishes Athos will permit him to do that again, because he knows that there is so much more that they can do together.

Louis and Anne stroll over to them. Louis looks overjoyed: Charlotte is his particular protégé and her exhibition is a success. He salutes them with a bottle of sparkling wine. “A toast, everyone!” he says. “Isn’t Charlotte just marvellous? I don’t know where she’s been hiding all those years.” He raises his glass, beaming like a child. “Come on, everyone, drink up! We need another toast.” Athos shrugs, drains his glass and holds it out to Louis, and Porthos does the same. Louis starts to fill them with sparkling wine.

“What about Anne?” Athos says.

“Anne’s not drinking,” Louis says over Aramis’ glass. He steps to Anne’s side and takes her hand. “We’re pregnant.”

It’s a good thing that Porthos and d’Artagnan are there. Aramis’ world tilts and he watches his friends break out in broad grins and congratulations and hugs. Anne disappears completely in Porthos’ embrace and when she re-emerges, she’s laughing and beaming and she’s not looking at him. But Athos is.

Athos is. Athos is glaring at him. Those clear blue eyes bore deeply into his soul like death rays. Aramis sways under the force of Athos’ disgust. He has less than one second to force his face to relax, and he feels it creak in the corners as he hitches up a smile and turns to Anne. “Congratulations,” he says and hugs her, counting down in his head, because he can’t let her go too soon and he can’t hold her too long, either. Her hand brushes over the nape of his neck when they part, and it hurts.

He avoids Athos for the rest of the evening. He’s surprised that Athos is still here. He’s surprised that Athos is here and yet isn’t trying to confront him. He thinks back to that morning at the B&B thinks how stupid he was to let himself get carried away. How stupid he was to not realise that Athos might have woken up during the night; that he would notice in the morning that Aramis was missing. That Athos, of all people, would be smart enough to put two and two together.

And he did. Belatedly, but he did. It is his, Aramis’, own fault: by having sex with Athos, he has attuned Athos to himself. Sexual jealousy, no matter how slight and fleeting, makes for an excellent radar.

He chats to Charlotte, asks the right questions and drops the right compliments and smiles in the right moments, but when he catches Anne’s eye over the heads of the crowd, he excuses himself and follows Anne outside. They walk past the smokers gathered by the entrance. Anne walks around the corner, stops by the window and turns to him. It’s dark outside, and the crowd gathered in the broadly illuminated exhibition room can’t see out. With Louis in excellent spirits, the opening night is turning into a party. Louis is pouring out wine generously, he’s laughing with Charlotte, and he even makes the Cardinal crack a rare smile. Porthos, too, looks happier than Aramis has seen him in days. Something is up with Porthos; Aramis has been too wrapped up in his own problems for it to register properly, but he makes a mental note to ask Porthos what’s wrong the moment they’re back home.

Anne looks away from the window and faces him. Aramis stands to attention, like a man bracing himself to hear his sentence. “Congratulations, Anne,” he says quietly.

“Louis and I have been trying for a baby for ages,” Anne says. “We underwent all examinations and treatments in the book. In the end we only ever had sex when I was ovulating, it took out all the joy of it.” She stops at the look on his face.

“So it’s mine?”

“I don’t know. It might just as well be his.”

“You will find out?”

“No. It’s mine and Louis’.”

“What?” His world tilts again, and he bursts out, before he can stop himself: “Why are you with him?”

“Oh, you know. He’s smart and funny,” she says in an ill-advised attempt to lighten the mood, but checks herself instantly. “Sorry. Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. Seriously, though, Aramis. He is witty, you’ve got to give him that. And he’s smarter than you give him credit for.”

“He must be,” Aramis says. “If he’s managed to take you in. But, Anne, is that enough? Spending the rest of your life with a man just because he’s witty? Have him bring up your child? Our child.”

She freezes at his words, her face closes and he is again reminded why they’ve nicknamed her Queenie. She sheathes herself in regal aloofness and he knows he has lost. “You don’t know that,” Anne says. “You don’t know that it’s yours. In fact, it’s unlikely that it is yours. I only slept with you once. I slept with Louis dozens of times around the time I fell pregnant.”

“But you-” Aramis knows that he has lost, but he can’t not try. “You’ve been trying for ages, and you sleep with me once, and bam – you’re pregnant. That does rather suggest that it’s mine.”

“No.” She’s not going to budge, he can tell. “It suggests no such thing. It only means that the moment I stopped trying to get pregnant, stopped having sex by the clock and just let go and enjoyed sex for its own sake, it happened. That’s quite common actually.”

“Why did you sleep with me, then?” Aramis asks softly. There is no reproach in his voice, he simply wants to know.

“Because I fancied you,” Anne says. “I like you, Aramis. A lot. You’re beautiful and you’re charming and you know how to look at a woman to make her feel like she’s the most precious thing in the universe. But I’m not in love with you.”

“No. You’re in love with him.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. And no amount of flirting with you will change that.”

“We did a bit more than flirt.”

“And now that we got it out of our system we can all move on.”

He stares at her pensively for a moment. “I should apologise,” he says eventually. “I’d pegged you as so much softer. You’re tough.”

Somewhere around the corner the babble of voices rises loud and shrill until it erupts in a burst of laughter. Aramis’ mobile beeps and he takes it out mechanically.

_Porthos, d’Artagnan and I are leaving. What about you?_

“I’ve got to go,” Aramis says.

“Yes. I’ve got to go back in.” Anne looks down at her fingers and then back at him. “Are we still friends?”

“Always,” Aramis says. The look on her face, so open and trusting, and he walked around for a week with her scent clinging to his skin. 

“There you are,” Porthos says when he comes back in. Athos doesn’t say anything; Athos is staring at him in determined silence. Aramis feels like a dog slinking back to his master to be punished. “We’ve missed you.”

“Where did you disappear to?” d’Artagnan asks.

“I think Aramis was saying goodbye to Charlotte,” Athos says before Aramis can think of a reply.

“I didn’t know you know her that well?” Porthos says.

“You know Aramis. He’s very discreet if he wants to,” Athos says, stressing the word discreet just a little bit too much. 

Porthos looks from Athos to Aramis and drains his glass. “Home?” he says.

“Yeah.” Aramis pats him on the shoulder and permits his hand to linger. Home sounds good. Porthos is solid and real, and right now this is all that he wants. He wants to curl up on the sofa next to Porthos and regain his equilibrium under Porthos’ protective wing. He half hopes and half fears that Athos will come back with them, too. Athos will not let him get away with this; he will force him with his back against the wall and will assault him with words that will hit their mark. And yet, part of him wants that to happen. He wants Athos to be furious with him, and he deserves it. He deserves everything that Athos might say, no matter how much it will hurt. Anything would be better than this silent disdain. 

And if he’s lucky, if he’s very, very lucky, Athos will grant him forgiveness with that rare, heartbreaking tenderness which he so carefully guards and rarely lets escape, and which Aramis has learned to crave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm facing my darkest fears by tackling the dreaded baby plotline. I apologise for the angstfest in this instalment, but in my defence: it's canonical angst. I'll make it up to them. There'll be more Porthos soon, too.
> 
> This was actually quite difficult, because by adapting it for a modern setting, it becomes even more apparent what _idiots_ they were. You were in love at the age of 16 and never since, Aramis? Really? I sincerely hope it's just a line, not something you truly believe.
> 
> For any British readers: Mecklenburg Lakeland - think Norfolk.

**Author's Note:**

> I adapted book Athos' reason to break up with Milady rather than BBC Athos', but a backstory with rape and murder would not fit into the setting.
> 
> Title taken from Claude Chabrol's film _Les innocents aux mains sales_ ( _Innocents with Dirty Hands_ ).


End file.
